Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Aquarius He Said He Said by Jamie Craig Ex-gangster Darren Gee: ‘I ruined my life killing man for revenge’ When you subscribe we will use the information you provide to send you these newsletters. Sometimes they'll include recommendations for other related newsletters or services we offer. Our Privacy Notice explains more about how we use your data, and your rights. You can unsubscribe at any time. Darren Gee, 40, was one of Liverpool's violent and most-feared criminals who claims to have turned his back on crime after serving a prison term over the murder of the "wrong man". He told today's youngsters that a path of crime was not worth it, urging them to keep their heads down and study instead. Gee was jailed for 18 years in 2006 after being convicted of conspiracy to murder for arranging rival drug dealer and father-of-five David Regan, 36, to be shot dead at his car wash in 2004. Related articles. He plotted the death after he was wrongly told that Mr Regan had been behind a firearms attempt on his life that had left innocent Craig Barker, 19, dead a month earlier. Gee said Class A drugs supply was behind the current spate of street-gang knife and gun murders across the UK. He insisted that those involved were wrong to have followed him down the same path. Gee now campaigns to teach children the benefits of choosing life over crime and has released his own rap music. He described his life after release from prison as **** due to his past. He appears in a new television documentary for Channel 5, starting tomorrow, in which gangsters are interviewed. Gee said: "Kids are killing kids over Class A drugs, and once one kid in an area kills another kid in the area you're looking at 30 years of problems. "You're not just looking at them two kids getting shot, now let's forget about it. "No, you're looking at them two kids' friends growing up with hatred against the other firm and it doesn't stop. Darren Gee blames the supply of Class A drugs for the spate of street gang knife and gun murders (Image: NC) "It just continues. It's not the life to get into and you might think look at that mate he's selling a bit of weed and he's got nice trainers, but that mate, in a year or two is in jail and ****** on drugs.You're not if you get on the [right] path and stay [at school] to work and go to college, settle in, make your dough. "That's what it's about. Don't go down the line I've went [sic] down, because you'll be sat here like this sounding like a ****head with no money, no wife and no life." Gee said there remains a contract on his life due to his past. During filming he received a tipoff that someone in the underworld is planning to kill him after two attempts six months ago. It was behind bars that he learnt Mr Regan had nothing to do with killing Mr Barker and he got the wrong man. He said: "David Regan was an innocent man in all this and had nothing to do with it. Coming Soon. For two years, Ares Gallo has been ransacking the galaxy for the woman who meant everything to him. They trained together, killed together, loved together, but now, Anicka Dekker doesn't even know who he is. All she knows every time she meets the enigmatic, scarred stranger is that a part of her trusts him. An even larger part desires him. In any and every way she can have him. Ares wants his wife back. Despite the scars that have changed his appearance and the chronic pain that destroyed his career, he follows Anicka from planet to planet, finding her in seedy bars, stately palaces, and everything in between. Every time they have a few moments of pure bliss, his hope blooms that this time�things will be different. Then, STRIKE, the organization that wanted them dead, tears them apart, erasing Anicka's memories, and Ares has to start all over again. But even if she can't remember him, he's certain she'll recognize their bond. Sooner or later. Coming from Loose Id, Winter 2010. AQUARIUS: HE SAID, HE SAID. So what if I thought he was gorgeous? He was also kind of a jerk. But then our kids decided to be best buddies, and I kept having to see the guy, and�well, keeping him strictly as fantasy material who never opened his mouth got a little harder after that. I don�t have time for a personal life. I�ve got a son whose medical history requires my full attention and a company I need to keep afloat in this awful economy. Making friends just isn�t a priority. At least until the choice got taken away from me. On the surface, the only thing single dads Peter Irving and Aaron Hardison have in common are their eight-year-old loner sons. But both men soon learn that appearances can be deceiving� Coming from Amber Allure, January 30, 2011. OUTCAST MINE. There is nothing Aleron Pitre can't steal, nobody he can't con and no situation he can't slip out of�until he's sent to the prison planet Tantoret, where every sentence is death. If the prisoners don't kill each other, they'll die slowly from mining the poisonous drug chojal. Yet Aleron still hopes that he can escape. Only thirty Athaki guards keep the chaos of Tantoret in check, a race of aliens stronger and faster than their human charges. Most intimidating of all is the head guard, Jasak, who has his own reasons for being sent to Tantoret. Amidst the darkness and desperation, Aleron and Jasak share an unexpected attraction. An attraction neither can resist when Jasak claims Aleron as his mate to protect him. Then they discover that both guards and inmates are planning a coup, while a traitor from an enemy nation threatens the whole planet. Suddenly escape from Tantoret isn't just Aleron's dream�it's a matter of survival for them both. Coming from Carina Press, February 14, 2011. TOUCHING SILVER. When Stacy Montenegro reappears five years after she was kidnapped, cold-case detective Olivia Wright reopens the investigation. Her first clue points her to drug lord Gabriel de los Rios and the one detective in the LAPD who knows more about Gabriel than anybody else, Isaac McGuire. The single-minded Olivia works best without distraction, but Isaac McGuire is the biggest distraction she's ever met. Gabriel is consumed with possessing the supernatural power of the Silver Maiden coins - a strange force that can overcome even time and space - and kidnapping young women is related to his obsession. Olivia and Isaac scour Los Angeles to find Gabriel before he can do more harm, but Gabriel does everything he can to stay one move ahead of them. A growing respect between Olivia and Isaac turns into mutual lust, but Olivia doesn't date coworkers, and Isaac is distracted by a stalker who begins by killing his fish before escalating the harassment. The power of the Silver Maiden coins becomes frighteningly personal when Olivia realizes she has her own connection to the mysterious coin. When she touches it, she can see things she has no business witnessing, and feel things more vivid than her own emotions. If she can understand her own connection to the coin, she might be able to save the young women counting on her. If the coin doesn't kill her first. As heartbroken Cheryl Cole seeks the advice of clairvoyants, we ask. With a broken marriage behind her, Cheryl Cole has become the latest celebrity to seek answers about her future by consulting a psychic. The singer has admitted making life-changing decisions - including dating Ashley Cole - based on the advice of several clairvoyants. But as Cheryl prepares this week to divorce her footballer husband, the big question is, just how reliable are the psychics the celebrities turn to for guidance? When Ashley made a play for Cheryl in 2004, tarot card reader Gareth Francis told her to give the Premier League star her telephone number - advice she might now be regretting. Later Los Angeles-based clairvoyant Jusstine Kenzer - who Cheryl has consulted twice - claimed Ashley was her "soul-mate" in a previous life - just two months before Cheryl began divorce proceedings. So I decided to put four celebrity psychics to the test, giving them the same information - that I'm 33, single, no kids, divorced three years ago and recently finished seeing someone - to see what the higher powers had in store for me. I asked them to look at my relationships, my career and reveal what the future holds. The results were anything but predictable. Three of them said I'd be getting a big promotion at work, three were convinced I would soon have a son - and two even said I was pregnant already (I'm not). And all of them said I would settle down - although they couldn't agree who with or when. But other predictions seemed to be nothing more than wild guesses. Gareth Francis: Cheryl Cole's psychic. Who Is He? Says he can predict the future for up to three years and that clients include Rod Stewart, Cheryl Cole and ex-Big Brother housemates. The visit: At his flat in Newcastle, dotted with aromatherapy candles. He spent 10 minutes telling me that if things he said made no sense now, they would in the future. About Me: He stunned me almost immediately by saying: "I can see lots of writing and words around you, photography. Are you a reporter or know people in the media?" I presumed he might have guessed my job because his A-list clients make people keen to hear his gossip. He rightly pointed out I'd been having terrible moods recently, found it difficult to tell people outside work how I feel and if someone upsets me, I tend to disengage with them rather than "throw a paddy". The present: He said he could see a leak of water in my house. I did have a spill in the kitchen the day before, but also had a flood a year ago, so maybe it was that. But I don't have a friend whose name begins with "M" or someone called Cassie, as he suggested. But I was astonished when he said I had recently met an elderly woman with a splint or brace on her little finger - a couple of months ago I had lunch with my friend Shirley shortly after she had an operation on her pinky. But the rest was easy-to-guess, standard events in most lives, such as a phone conversation with someone I hadn't been able to hear properly and my laptop not working very well. The future: I would travel within the UK in the next year to places beginning with E, D and Y and make four plane trips out of London within 18 months. I was due a big change at work with a new contract (is the Editor reading this?) and be good friends with a woman called Helen (don't know any). "Do you have a son? I'm getting a son very strongly." When I said, "No", he said: "You will have." Using tarot cards he said I was unhappy where I was living (wrong) and would have that son at 35, marry at 37 and move to the country with a man whose name begins with S. Cost: £30 for an hour. He wouldn't let me leave without telling me about his Facebook group, that he was in Cheryl Cole's autobiography and I was now a favoured customer. Verdict: Eerily accurate in parts, but much of it was stating the obvious. Jusstine Kenzer: Celebrity healer. Who Is She? Jusstine has been a Hollywood psychic healer for 20 years with clients including Cheryl Cole, Dustin Hoffman, Carmen Electra and Desperate Housewives Eva Longoria, Nicolette Sheridan and Teri Hatcher. The visit: Took place over the phone with Jusstine in Los Angeles. For the first part of the conversation it sounded like she had me on speakerphone while moving boxes and papers around, and for the last part she seemed to be talking to me while driving. About Me: She knew nothing apart from my name, and said she was going to talk to my "spirit guides" to answer my questions and later to heal me. She said I had a number of past lives and seemed to be a teacher in most of them but I had also suffered a lot. The past: I asked Jusstine about my past, and she wanted me to give her specific information about my exhusband and what I wanted to ask him. She said: "He's not real excited about me looking at him. There's a lot of energy wrapped around his stomach area." (He's quite fat.) She said: "He feels like a failure. He's with someone younger now who doesn't challenge him and he's having a mid-life crisis. You're analysing what went wrong but he's not. What you're doing is emotionally beating yourself up and it blocks your prosperity." The present: Jusstine said: "It does not look to me like you're with anyone right now." Well no, but then who rings a psychic healer if they are? She said I felt frustrated at work and that "you're rolling your eyes a lot because you feel stuck". She said: "We've got to let go of this stuff and get you moving." The future: Jusstine said I would have children when I am 38 but could not be specific about who with or when I would meet him. She said: "I can see lots of energy around the month of December for you. It has the energy of meeting someone while on vacation." For the last 10 minutes of the call Jusstine carried out a "healing", which involved me visualising "energy" in my heart and it leaving my body. Unaware I was not taking her exercise seriously, she said: "You did a great job, that went so well." Cost: £142.94 for an hour's consultation which actually lasted 40 minutes because I had run out of things to ask and needed to hang up to laugh. VERDICT: Total hokum but I'll credit her for the common-sense tip of "stop worrying". Craig Hamilton-Parker: TV clairvoyant. Who Is He? Former advertising man Craig and his wife, ex-psychiatric nurse Jane, are Britain's most famous clairvoyant couple. They have a theatre show in Reading on July 25. The visit: Took place at the Hamilton-Parkers' home in Eastleigh, Hants, in Craig's office. About Me: Craig said he had made contact with my dead grandfather, that he had been in the Army (true) possibly in the Far East (Belgium, actually) and he felt protective of me (gosh). He also said I'd got my writing talents from him (he was an upholsterer). Craig said he had been well- spoken, Scottish and liked French food, particularly cheese (working-class, from Kent, and had a sweet tooth) and died after a brief chest condition (no) and had a dry sense of humour (true). He thought I had been privately-educated (nope) and that my mum's side of the family came from Ireland (yes). He said my dad was quiet, had links to the sea and problems with his teeth (no). The present: Craig said my mum had a chest condition at the moment - she has - and she worries a lot about money and tends to hoard, which is right. He said that there was a man in my life who travelled a lot, and we had been apart for a while. "He feels like a nice fella," said Craig. "But indecisive. Your nan says you should marry him. He drinks too much." After I admitted I was a journalist, he said I write more about celebrities and fashion than anything else, which is completely wrong. He also thought I knew Cheryl Cole and had been to see The X Factor - wrong, but I suppose I had just seen Cheryl's psychic. The future: Craig cast my I Ching, a way of telling fortunes, and said I was at a turning point in which things needed to be allowed "time to grow" and my last relationship would return. He thought I hadn't been married before, and when I told him he was wrong said: "You got that sorted a long time ago, it's finished with now." Craig said I would have a son soon and said I might be pregnant already. He said I would write celebrity biographies, which fills me with horror, and that I could get a job on a magazine writing a column. COST: £75 for an hour, although he doesn't really do private readings any more. Verdict: Uncannily accurate about some things, but very wrong on others. Maurice Amdur: Former actor. Who Is He? A former actor who says he did readings for Princess Diana, three US presidents and film stars David Carradine and Roger Moore. The visit: Took place in the dining room of his parents' home in North London. Wearing a gold charm bracelet laden with trinkets and fertility symbols, he worked out my astrology with charts and books then predicted the future using tarot cards. He said he was "tuning into" my soul, and thought I was a Pisces with a Leo nose. I'm an Aquarius. He said I am an "8" person, born in the Chinese year of the snake. I was born in the year of the dragon. About Me: The first thing he said was startlingly accurate: "You are your own judge, jury and courtroom, always asking questions, never at rest, and you rely on sarcasm rather than talking honestly about your feelings." He said I work to make other people happy and ought to stop. "You're like a battering ram but you're the bit being battered." The past: On our birthdates my ex-husband was a "perfect match" for me, but there was external disapproval of our relationship. Actually we were a bad match but both got on well with the in-laws. After hearing I was divorced, Maurice said I had moved house, changed my job and changed my friends. All wrong. The present: "You've been anxious and not sleeping well since February," he said, which was right. "The Taurean man you've been seeing recently was the most handsome you've ever known, like George Clooney or Pierce Brosnan," he said (far from it). "He's an emotional mess," he went on. "You want to be with him as much as you want breast cancer. You couldn't communicate with him at all. Did he hit you? Did you hit him?" (A very big no on all counts.) The future: "Either a promotion or change of job. A huge amount of money is coming your way. Your exhusband will get in touch to apologise. You will have a vascular health scare. In 18 months or two years you will meet The One and remarry. He's about 6ft, quite stocky, a successful businessman about five years older. You will have two children and live in the country, maybe Kent." (I grew up in Kent and my long-term plan is to move back). Cost: £175 for 45 minutes. He came with me to the cashpoint for the money, pointing out his Lexus sports car on the way. Verdict: Quite uncanny about a few things, but fluffed up just as often. He tried four times to sell me expensive "psychic candles" to cure my problems, which put me off. NBC Entertainment Chiefs Talk Donald Trump, Tina Fey and Being “Whores for Emmy Nominations” Bob Greenblatt and Jennifer Salke also talked about the 'Aquarius' binge experiment and plans for more faith-based fare during their stop at TCA. Share this article on Facebook Share this article on Twitter Share this article on Email Show additional share options Share this article on Print Share this article on Comment Share this article on Whatsapp Share this article on Linkedin Share this article on Reddit Share this article on Pinit Share this article on Tumblr. Robert Greenblatt - H 2015. Share this article on Facebook Share this article on Twitter Share this article on Email Show additional share options Share this article on Print Share this article on Comment Share this article on Whatsapp Share this article on Linkedin Share this article on Reddit Share this article on Pinit Share this article on Tumblr. Bob Greenblatt wrapped up press tour with a mix of snark and candor. “You’ll be glad to know I threw out my 15 minute PowerPoint about how challenged our business is,” the NBC Entertainment chairman said from stage at the Television Critics Association summer press tour Thursday, adding: “I think you guys know all of the headlines. I thought I’d give you my 15-second version: Too many shows, not enough monetization, fractured audience, Netflix didn’t report ratings, what did Nielsen do this time, and how do we find the next big comedy.” The suite of familiar headlines drew laughs in the Beverly Hilton ballroom and set the stage for an entertaining half-hour in which Greenblatt and his entertainment president Jennifer Salke fielded several questions about former Celebrity Apprentice host Donald Trump (and no, he’s “absolutely not” returning to the NBC franchise) along with the network’s rough comedy spell, the Aquarius binge experiment and decision to reboot the 1990s comedy Coach . Of the latter, which one reporter suggested sounded a bit like a practical joke when the revival news was first announced, Greenblatt deadpanned: “One man’s practical joke is another man’s hit show.” Here are the other highlights from Greenblatt and Salke’s morning with the press. The Aquarius Experiment. The Aquarius experiment was precisely that: an experiment. “We’re the most traditional kind of network, and we’re always looking for ways to become less traditional,” Greenblatt said, adding that it’s critical for someone in his position to always be adapting and evolving as his audience does. He said he was pleased to see that the nonlinear strategy drew a younger audience (median age: 35) to the series online, which made up 6 percent of the series’ viewership. Also promising: Internal research conducted around the experiment suggested that “people automatically thought better of the network” when it offered the binge option to its audience. Post-panel he told reporters that he likely wouldn’t release all episodes of the David Duchovny series’ second season at once, but he’s open to following the same model on other projects. As for the surprise renewal given the series’ meager linear ratings, Greenblatt said he would never “apologize for renewing a show that I think is creatively superb.” Greenblatt didn’t shy away from his network’s growing comedy problem, which has gotten outsized attention since NBC was once home to Must See TV comedies like Friends and Seinfeld . At the same time, he stressed how important it was to be smart about the bets the network makes, reiterating that moving Universal TV’s Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, for instance, was a shrewd one since it had a significantly better chance of survival at Netflix. Which is not to say he wouldn’t have loved the kind of awards attention the series received over at NBC, joking: “We’re whores for Emmy nominations just like everyone else.” Playing to the room, he used his TCA platform to announce new comedy pilots from Tina Fey, Robert Carlock and Parks & Recreation ’s Mike Schur and to plug a live season of Undateable . Greenblatt was well prepared for the deluge of questions about Trump, and even seemed to mount a charm offensive just weeks after his network decided to ditch Trump’s Miss USA Pageant in the wake of Trump’s derogatory comments about Mexican immigrants. “He’s a lovely guy,” said the NBC chief, who noted that the GOP presidential aspirant was “very much of a collaborator” during production of Celebrity Apprentice, adding: “We weren’t in any adversarial position.” Except for the Miss USA imbroglio, of course, which is currently in the hands of lawyers. But Greenblatt asserted that the “controversies” swirling around Trump were his own “personal controversies” and did not affect his working relationship with NBC: “It was a congenial, really great relationship.” It almost sounded like Greenblatt was leaving that door open for a Trump return — if he fails to advance to the White House, of course. And in the meantime, perhaps some appearances on NBC late-night shows. As for his thoughts on why Trump is striking a chord, Greenblatt pointed to his “unfiltered,” tell-it-like-it-is strategy that many find “refreshing.” Plus, he said: “The world likes a star, and [Trump is] a star.” Live, Live, Live. “I’m a live junkie,” said Greenblatt , who stressed the power of the genre the way so many other executives have during the 2½-week press tour. But he’s continuing to put his money where his mouth is, banking on more live productions (he said post-panel that he’s quietly acquired rights to more musicals and is still at work on a production of A Few Good Men ), a mostly live, variety-style show from Neil Patrick Harris and a live comedy with Undateable . Next, he said he’d like to try a live drama, though he acknowledged he needs to find producers who are willing to tackle the high-wire act that that would entail. About the Reboot Frenzy. The NBC chiefs insisted they aren’t jumping on the reboot bandwagon just to jump on the reboot bandwagon. That said, they have several coming. In defense of Heroes Reborn , the pair said creator Tim Kring came to them with both a desire and vision — not the other way around. Same was true of the planned Coach reboot, which was an idea hatched by star Craig T. Nelson and creator Barry Kemp . With Heroes , Greenblatt reiterated the ongoing response to that show, which made a revival particularly appealing. He added that the plan for now simply was to do a truncated 13, an order size he and Kring believe would have better served the drama from the outset. As for Coach , he and Salke see it as an opportunity to do another variation on a family show with a big star, a proven showrunner and, yes, a presold title. Greenblatt quipped, “And if that works, Alf : The Series is next.” The Untold Truth Of Craig Melvin. A familiar face to NBC viewers for years, Craig Melvin became part of the Today family in 2018. For Melvin, joining Today as the morning's show's weekday news anchor was part of a career journey that began in his hometown of Columbia, S.C., when he was still in high school. According to The Washington Post , Melvin was a "teen reporter" for Columbia's NBC affiliate, WIS News 10. His talent emerged early; as WIS News reported, he won an Associated Press award in 1996. After graduating college, Melvin returned to WIS, first as a featured reporter, then anchor. In 2008, he left WIS for a high-profile anchor job in Washington, D.C. Three years later, AdWeek reported on his next big move: to New York City, taking a job with MSNBC that also involved reporting on the NBC network. Once again, Melvin rose through the ranks, eventually becoming MSNBC anchor, then anchor of the weekend edition of Today before being tapped for the show's flagship weekday edition. Viewers have watched Melvin's rise as it happened, on live television, yet there's a lot they might not know about him. Keep reading to discover the untold truth of Craig Melvin. Craig Melvin has an incredibly efficient morning routine. Craig Melvin's schedule is not for the faint of heart. As he told Parade , his alarm wakes him up each weekday morning at 3:45 a.m. After that, he's "gotten it down to a bit of a science in that I can get out of the house in 22 minutes." A half-hour after awakening, he's picked up by a driver, typically before 4:15 a.m., for a commute that takes about an hour. Melvin uses that time to prep for the show, "reading scripts and notes" for Today, as well as his MSNBC show. He usually arrives at Today 's studio in Rockefeller Center by about 5:30. Before going on air, he'll eat a breakfast he describes as "very particular" and never varies. "I'm a creature of habit. I'm like a 70-year-old man," Melvin joked. "I have a nonfat yogurt every morning and I add nuts and blueberries." That routine also includes coffee — lots of coffee. By 9:30 a.m., Melvin revealed, he'll have had "three cups of coffee and a double shot of espresso" to fuel him up for the day to come. He experienced a COVID-19 scare. In mid-March 2020, a Today staffer tested positive for COVID-19. That staffer had been in close contact with Craig Melvin and Al Roker, resulting in both remaining in their homes and missing that day's broadcast. "Out of an abundance of caution, Craig and Al are taking the morning off while we map that colleague's close contacts," Today 's Savannah Guthrie told viewers. Melvin retweeted that video announcement, sharing his own message. "Feeling great this am," he wrote. "Thinking about our friend and colleague. Thinking about everyone grappling with this right now. I'll be fine. So will we." Weeks later, Melvin's experience with the world-changing virus became even deeper. As Variety reported, in April, he began hosting Craig Melvin Reports: Coronavirus Pandemic , airing for two weeks in the slot where his MSNBC show normally ran. According to NBC News, Melvin would "safely report with a slim crew from key locations critical to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic starting with the Central Park field hospital on Monday." For his broadcast, Melvin would be joined remotely each day by a "Doctor on Duty" who could provide "expert insight." His mentor Al Roker has a 'man crush' on Craig Melvin. During a July 2020 edition of Today , longtime weather guy Al Roker brought up the topic of mentoring and asked Craig Melvin who his mentor was. "The guy who just talked," Melvin declared. "Roker's become my secret mentor — he doesn't even know he's my mentor." According to Melvin, it was many years earlier, "before anybody started paying attention to me at 30 Rock," that he asked Roker to lunch, with little expectation he'd actually take him. However, Roker agreed. "I wanted to pick his brain about his production company, the industry, navigating the waters," Melvin continued. "To be able to do what Al has done for 40 years? It's a feat." Over the years, Roker and Melvin have grown to become close friends. "I'm just going to come right out and say this. I have a man crush on Craig Melvin, and I don't care who knows it," wrote Roker in a Melvin-praising piece for Variety . Describing Melvin's smooth vocal delivery as "the newsman's version of Lou Rawls," Roker continued by gushing about "crushing on" Melvin, a.k.a. "one good-looking, sweet piece of man candy." Matt Lauer and Megan Kelly's respective scandals advanced his career. Two high-profile NBC scandals rocked the network, but oddly enough, served to fuel Melvin's rise through the ranks. The first came in the fall of 2017, when veteran Today anchor Matt Lauer was axed after Variety detailed the sexual harassment allegations of numerous women. According to a report in ET , both Melvin and Willie Geist had been angling to replace Lauer; R Online reported Melvin was "devastated" when the gig ultimately went to Hoda Kotb. However, another opportunity arose. In August 2018, Melvin stepped away from the Saturday edition of Today , with Page Six speculating it was in order for him to join the weekday Today . As reported by The State , this came to pass less than a week later, when Melvin was bumped up to "weekday anchor" on Today . "The dream has come true," Melvin said, admitting, "it's a pinch-myself moment." Weeks later, NBC's high-profile new hire Megyn Kelly was fired over some controversial comments about blackface. The former Fox News personality's abrupt sacking left an hour-long hole in NBC's daytime schedule — which led to the creation of Today Third Hour , with Melvin and other Today personalities appearing in the studio of Kelly's canceled show. Craig Melvin's interview questions ticked off a former president. Being impeached for lying about an extramarital affair with an intern 20 years earlier is apparently still a bit of a sore point for former US President Bill Clinton. Craig Melvin found that out firsthand when he spoke with America's 42nd POTUS (alongside author James Patterson) during a Today interview. Asked by Melvin whether he would have "approached the accusations differently" if the scandal had occurred "with everything that's going on with the #MeToo movement," Clinton insisted, "I don't think it would be an issue." Clinton's tone turned testy when Melvin asked if he had ever apologized to his former intern publicly. "I did say, publicly, on more than one occasion, that I was sorry. The apology was public," said Clinton. When Melvin asked if Clinton felt he owed her a private apology, he insisted, "No, I do not." The interview stirred up much controversy for Clinton while promoting the book he and Patterson had written. When he and Patterson subsequently appeared on The Late Show , Clinton addressed Melvin's interview. "It wasn't my finest hour," Clinton admitted, adding that when he watched himself on TV, " I was mad at me." Craig Melvin's wife is also a broadcast journalist. Craig Melvin married Lindsay Czarniak, an on-air personality for ESPN and former NBC Sports correspondent, in 2011. At the time of their wedding, the couple opened up to The Washington Post about their relationship. "She loves life," said Melvin of his bride. "She stops. She smells the roses. She picks a few, and she shows them to me — 'Here, smell these!'" In the years since their wedding, reported Closer Weekly , the couple went on to have two children, son Delano and daughter Sybil. Czarniak exited ESPN in 2017 and told The Washington Post that while "sports is still very much [her] love," she would actually like to cover a broader range of topics as a journalist. In 2019, she joined Fox Sports, focusing on NASCAR along with working as an NFL sideline reporter. In addition to her journalism career, Czarniak also has an occasional sideline as an actress. According to IMDb , she has two onscreen acting credits under her belt: portraying a character named Mist in the 2000 sci-fi/action movie Aquarius, and a brief cameo as a news anchor in the 2010 horror flick Ghosts Don't Exist . Craig Melvin's mom had an 'uncomfortable' conversation with his wife about race. Given that Craig Melvin is Black and his wife Lindsay Czarniak is white, there were some cultural divides they found themselves navigating. As People reported, this led Czarniak to post a three-part interview series on Instagram, including conversations on "uncomfortable" issues surrounding race. In one of these interviews, Czarniak spoke with her mother-in-law Betty Jo Melvin, about her reaction when she found out her son was dating a white woman. "I told him that love has no color, that your skin color doesn't matter, as long as you loved him and he loved you," she told her Czarniak. While Betty Jo Melvin may not have been focused on skin color, she knew that wouldn't be the case with everyone her sons encountered. As a result, she taught them that whatever they were undertaking, they would "have to compete a little bit harder. They can't do the same things and get the same results as someone that has the same qualifications that they have if he's white or someone else. So you teach your children from when they're younger that, 'I need you to be more.' You have to push them hard." He's a big believer in Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000-hour rule. Malcolm Gladwell's bestselling book Outliers proposed an intriguing theory: in order to achieve true mastery in a field — whether it's as a professional athlete, a musician, or, in the case of Craig Melvin, a broadcast journalist — one needs to spend 10,000 hours honing that particular skill. While at least one study disagreed with Outliers ' conclusion, Melvin thinks Gladwell is onto something. "I am a firm believer in the 10,000 Hour Rule (the principle that 10,000 hours of 'deliberate practice' are needed to become world-class in any field)," Melvin said in an interview with Serendipity . For Melvin, this meant serving as a journalistic "one-man-band" in his early days as a broadcaster. "I would drive the news truck to locations, run the cable from the truck to the camera, and report. I did it all and that probably helped me in my career more than anything else." Whatever he reported on, added Melvin, "I was forced to learn how to speak extemporaneously on live television on a regular basis. I thoroughly enjoyed every aspect of it, and 18 years later I can tell you I still enjoy is just as much." He lost his brother to a terrible illness. The December 16, 2020 edition of Today was an emotional one for Craig Melvin, when he paid tribute to his older brother, Lawrence Meadows, who lost his battle with stage 4 colon cancer. Melvin first revealed his brother's death in an Instagram post. "Colon cancer robbed him and us of so much," wrote Melvin of his brother. "He was diagnosed at 39. He died Wednesday at 43. He spent a fair amount of time over the past few years raising awareness about the disease. We'll be keeping up that fight." On Today , Melvin admitted that his grief was tempered with relief. "He was suffering at the end, and when you have someone you love and that you cherish, you don't want them to suffer anymore," Melvin said. He also shared his thanks to "the friends, the strangers, who sent cards, texts, and prayers especially," and offered further gratitude to his co-stars on Today , "our little TV family," as he referred to them. According to Melvin, "you guys really held us up over the last few weeks and it was a kindness and a generosity that we will never forget." He explained how some strangers' well-intentioned comments were kind of racist. During the summer of 2020, when protests erupted around the globe in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, Craig Melvin hosted a timely NBC News "virtual conversation" titled Growing Up Black . As a Black man married to a white woman and father of two biracial children, Melvin brought a unique perspective. As Today reported, Melvin explained why people commenting about his "well-behaved" children tended to irk him. "They either look Black or they're racially ambiguous and I'm always struck when someone, a stranger will say to me, 'Oh your kids are so well-behaved,'" Melvin said of his children, who at the time were aged three and six. "And you know that they probably wouldn't say that if there were two white kids sitting there who are the same age. It's like, did you not expect my kids to be well-behaved?" Melvin had previously opened up on Today about raising biracial children. As Melvin said, he and his wife Lindsay Czarniak "have always lived lives that we like to think we don't see race first . But since we've been married, we have become more aware of it than we were before we were married. Since we've had children we've become even more aware of it, and we've talked about how do you rear biracial children in an environment like this?" The fitness routine that keeps him in shape. While Today viewers see Craig Melvin wearing a suit and tie when he's on the air, he apparently has a buff bod concealed beneath. Maintaining that fit and healthy physique, he told City Lifestyle , is something he insists on carving out time for. His motivation for staying in shape, he joked, was because "I honestly just don't want to be morbidly obese." Apparently, he was only half-joking, admitting there's a certain degree of vanity in his quest to stay fit. "If I didn't do what I do for a living, I'd probably be 300 pounds," he said. "My primary motivation for hitting the gym is that I don't want to look fat on TV." According to Melvin, his philosophy is "old school when it comes to the gym," relying on a regimen that includes cardio — running outdoors in the summer months — and lifting weights. "In the winter, I'm in the gym. I'm an elliptical guy and I need 20 minutes of cardio or I don't feel like I've worked out sufficiently," he explained, adding that when it comes to weight training he swears by "low weight, high reps." He damaged his eyes because he was an 'idiot' Another thing that Today viewers may not know about Craig Melvin is that he needs glasses, and wears contact lenses to correct his vision. However, thanks to some extreme inattentiveness, those same lenses that assist his sight nearly caused him to lose it. "I was one of those people that did not listen to their ophthalmologist when they would tell them repeatedly that they should not sleep in their contact lenses," Melvin admitted in an interview with People . "I never had any problems when I did, so if my eyes got dry I would just use rewetting drops. I just thought that maybe my eyes were different." When he began to notice persistent redness in his eyes, Melvin finally heeded his coworkers' advice and visited a doctor — who told him his "filthy habit" of sleeping with his contacts had resulted in developing a corneal ulcer. Melvin's diagnosis led him, for the first time ever, to wear glasses on the air, and he offered advice for viewers who wore contact lenses: "Don't be an idiot like me." Joining Today bumped up Craig Melvin's salary. Working on one of America's most-watched morning shows pays a lot more than Craig Melvin earned when he first launched his broadcasting career at WIS News 10 in his hometown of Columbia, S.C. Once he landed at NBC's 30 Rockefeller Center headquarters in the Big Apple, it's safe to say that the size of his paychecks improved significantly — and became even bigger when he joined Today . According to Celebrity Net Worth , Melvin has a net worth of $6 million and reportedly earns $3 million per year as Today 's weekday news anchor. In any case, Melvin and his wife Lindsay Czarniak can afford to live in a "sprawling suburban home" in Connecticut, with five bedrooms and six bathrooms (via People ). According to the magazine, Melvin's "domain" is the basement, which boasts such luxurious features as a media room, home gym, and wine cellar, in addition to a "full bar." With two young children in the house, Melvin joked, the basement is also "the only place in the house where you can occasionally find 45 seconds of almost quiet."